On-time arrivals up nearly 30 percent at Stewart Airport

Arriving flights were on time 86.8 percent of the time at Stewart International Airport in January.

That's a leap of just under 30 percentage points from the same month last year. In January 2011, only 56.9 percent of arrivals were on time. It was the second month of what turned out to be a nearly yearlong timeliness slump at the airport.

Stewart did even better with on-time departures. It led all its competitors — Kennedy, La Guardia, Newark Liberty, Albany and Westchester — with 91.7 percent of departures leaving on time in January. That, too, was a big improvement on January 2011's 77.3 percent on-time percentage.

Only Albany had a better arrival on-time percentage — 88.8 — in January. Albany was second, behind Stewart with 91.3 percent of its departures on time.

Chalk it up mainly to the weather. In the winter of 2010-2011, there was some amount of snow or ice falling every two or three days, and the Port Authority, which runs Stewart, usually pointed to weather as the main culprit behind delayed flights.

But the winter that's about to end has been nearly snow- and ice-free. Statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation show weather was responsible for only about an hour's worth of delays at Stewart in January.

The month continued an improvement in on-time performance that began during the final two months of 2011.

All six airports had generally good on-time numbers for January. Newark was the only one to fall below 80 percent for both arrivals and departures. La Guardia was below 80 percent in arrivals, but had a solid 86.4 percent score for on-time departures.